Edinburgh Sports Club has been a Limited Company from the outset, so rather than a committee, we have a board, consisting of a Chair, a Company Secretary and a number of Directors. At Board meetings, the Club manager is also usually in attendance.

Board members are appointed at Annual General Meetings (AGM’s), and normally serve for three years. They can offer their services for longer, and in that case they, or any newly proposed board members, have to be agreed by a combination of those at the AGM along with proxy votes which are issued to all qualifying members. Details of Board members are always shown in the Annual Reports, details of which can be seen here.

Chairman have usually served for two or three years in the past, but Andrew Forrest, the current incumbent (in 2020) has broken the trend, having occupied the position since 2009

The following images in the slideshow list the Chairs from 1947 to the present day, along with an image of Chairmen taken at the 75th Anniversary Dinner in 2011. A further Gallery shown below featured images from Directors Dinners through the years.

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Directors Dinners

These events have been held for many years, the single tribute (apart from a warm feeling inside) paid to hard-working Board members. The qualification for attendance is membership of the Board at any time during the individual’s life; they may well no longer even be a member, and the invitation is extended to the individual, not their partner. Examination of Board membership in the club’s Annual Reports show that only around half a dozen (married) couples have qualified to be at the dinner together, but that they have rarely done so. The Boyds and the Cowpers are exceptions.

Until around twenty years ago, the Club obviously felt sufficiently flush to offer the dinner on a free basis, and amazingly large numbers of Board members (up to forty) turned out to enjoy sumptuous banquets and fine wines (as your Editor recollects). When the practice stopped, at least partially due to financial constraints, the numbers dropped, and have continued to do so until today when fifteen or so is deemed to be a good response. Fortunately, a small cohort of members pressurises the current Board and management to ensure the event continues.

The following gallery features photos from events in the 1990’s through to the first event post-COVID; around fifty different Directors are featured.